


When One Door Closes

by habenaria_radiata



Category: Persona 3, Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Kiss, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Get Together, Humor, Two Fix-Its For the Price of One, heavy spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:47:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25081852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/habenaria_radiata/pseuds/habenaria_radiata
Summary: Sitting in the dark, nursing bitter coffee, and ruminating about how unfair it all was wasn't exactly the blaze of glory Akira had always imagined going out on. Not like, say, hurling himself through a stained glass window and taking a gun barrel to the face in front of five hundred police officers.His Christmas Eve gets rather more interesting when a strange girl shows up to ask for clothes.
Relationships: Arisato Minako/Kurusu Akira
Comments: 24
Kudos: 159
Collections: Little Black Dress Exchange 2020





	When One Door Closes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaerstyne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaerstyne/gifts).



* * *

He’d read somewhere once that if you had anything stuck in your head, replacing it with something short and equally repetitive could get it unstuck. A particularly catchy chorus or jingle was supposed to do the trick. It made sense enough, but the notion had struck him as kind of silly -- when you ran the risk of getting the second thing stuck, it just seemed like trading one annoyance for another. At that point, why would you bother?

He understood why anyone would bother now. In this instance, it was absolutely worth it.

Akira pushed backwards against the bar stool where the curved wood bit low into his spine. There was no shortage of irritating commercials he could make use of, but now that he actually needed one, it was surprisingly difficult to unearth any from the storage of unwanted memories. He vaguely remembered all the pocky commercials Morning Musume starred in, but he couldn’t remember any of the actual words beyond the first three. No good. It had to be something longer. He was desperate enough he even tried to recall that obnoxious Jika Net Tanaka song, but he’d suppressed it with such ruthless efficiency he couldn’t remember either the music or the words.

And then it popped into his head. _Every day’s great at your Junes_! Yes, that was perfect. Exactly the right length and with a melody he could really focus on. _Every day’s great at - your - Ju - nes_. He hummed out loud along with it, closing his eyes and tightening his grip on the hot mug steaming gently between his fingers.

_Every day’s great at you should turn yourself into the police._

His eyes opened, then narrowed, and he frowned down at the murky liquid. Sae’s voice rang in his head, drowning out the perky Junes jingle as though it’d never been there at all. Over and over it ran the circuit of his brain, infinite revolutions of the world’s most audacious carousel.

He swallowed at the hot, rocky knot in his throat and lifted the mug. Akira had brewed a pot of coffee for himself, seeking out the comfort of the familiar, but every needling reminder that it could be his last for the foreseeable future somewhat undercut the soothing nature of its richly earthen scent. The bitterness swirling in his gut seemed to highlight the taste of it on his tongue as he took a slow sip and set it back down on the bar. It was hard to savor anything when it tasted like mud in his mouth.

_I want you to turn yourself into the police._

Here now, sitting safely in the aftermath, he couldn’t remember why he’d actually agreed to it. He should have told her no. He should have told her to fuck off. He’d given up everything to protect those people from themselves and from a malevolent god. His social standing. His family. His permanent record. His whole body had disintegrated before his very eyes, and all for their benefit. Mona was gone. None of that was enough for her? Now she wanted him to be the one to put his own freedom up on the chopping block to appease their egos?

Akira let go of the mug and pushed his fingers up beneath the lenses of his stupid glasses, pressing against his eyelids until the inky black of his vision burned white. He’d asked her for one more night, but now that he was sitting alone in the dark of Leblanc, he wasn’t sure why he had. He may as well have just gone with her straight to the police station and spent the night in jail rather than deliver himself to them on Christmas morning.

Sae had a lot of nerve to even expect him to. Frankly, they didn’t deserve his charity any more than they deserved his contrition. He didn’t want to go to jail. Most of the hideous bruises had healed, but he still had a sprained rib from the last time he’d been in the custody of Tokyo’s finest. He had changed their hearts -- changed everyone’s heart, allegedly. But how different could they really be if everyone still thought he deserved to be arrested? If they were so insecure they couldn’t _allow_ someone like him to be a hero? If they were so fucking petty that his future was the only acceptable price to pay for daring to make them look as corrupt and incompetent as they were?

But he would be safe. Allegedly.

It would be fine.

Allegedly.

He lifted the mug and swallowed, the rush of black liquid chasing away the chill that had drilled all the way down to his bones. It still tasted like mud. But at least it was warm.

A tap at the door shattered the heavy silence like a bullet. Akira sat upright and faced the door, his glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose and his heart throbbing right up beneath his ears. The tap sounded again. He could see a person-shaped shadow on the other side of it, a delicate looking fist pressed against the glass. What on earth could anyone possibly want from Leblanc at this time of night? He was certain he’d flipped the sign over to closed at least an hour ago, and he’d been sitting in near-total darkness ever since.

They had to be here by mistake. And yet, they knocked again, until Akira finally slid to his feet. He unlocked the door and opened it up just enough to fit himself through the crack. “I’m sorry, we’re cl-”

Standing before him was a girl shrouded in what looked to be a dirty white sheet, her entire body shaking so hard her teeth rattled like the innards of a gachapon. The auburn hair tumbling around her face was dusted with snow.

Akira froze in the middle of the frame, his hand still curled uselessly around the edge of the door and his eyes wide. “A- Are you alright?”

She looked up at him and drew the sheet tighter around herself. It was so dark he couldn’t tell what color her eyes were, only that they were ringed and heavy with exhaustion. Another violent shudder tore through her. Despite it, she managed a smile so bright it lit up her whole face, and a bare foot edged across the threshold. “Hi. Would you happen to have any clothes I could borrow?”

Before he could move to answer, or even think of one to give her, the girl’s eyelids sank, and she pitched forward and collapsed face-first into his chest. Akira rushed to catch her, one arm grasping at her back and the other dipping low to sweep up beneath her legs. Stumbling back inside Leblanc, he spun and fell hard against the door, banishing the cold outside and breathing hard. She wasn’t moving at all.

On pure autopilot, Akira peeled himself away from the door and hurried towards his room, the stairs thundering beneath his feet. He carried the strange girl to his bed and set her down as gently as he could. Tremors still zipped through her body, to his total lack of surprise; that filthy sheet could offer very little in the way of keeping her warm. Hesitation sat at the back of his neck like a stone, but the need to get her into something more substantial forced him to reach for it and ease it away.

At least until he nudged it far enough to realize that her bizarre request for clothes had been a little more urgent than he’d realized. Burning scarlet, Akira yanked the sheet back up over her bare chest and ripped both his hands away from her quicker than an inquisitive child from a hot stove. Shit, shit, shit. Why was she naked?! Inching away from her, he craned his neck to locate his space heater and got up to flick it on. The droning hum of it soon filled the room, and he moved back to her side and chewed at his lip, staring down at her slack face.

Uncomfortable as he was, he couldn’t just leave her like that. She was liable to freeze to death. God, he hoped she was a monumentally understanding soul, or they were in for a very awkward conversation when she came to. Taking a huge breath, Akira reached behind him with one arm, grasping the back of his thick black sweater and peeling it up overhead. He squeezed his eyes shut and yanked the sheet off her again, then scrambled to pull his sweater over her head without actually looking at her.

It proved to be one hell of an ordeal. His glasses were still skewed on his face, and he had to dig around in each of his sleeves to fish for her hands. But eventually he was able to wrestle it onto her and get it smoothed down, and he did the same with his pajama pants -- also without looking. They'd had plenty of time to soak up his body heat. Hopefully that would do anything at all to help her warm up faster, otherwise he was going to feel like an enormous tool. He ignored the cold rippling across his own freshly-bared skin and pulled his blanket over her to tuck it around her body. There. Perfect. She made for quite the respectable sushi roll, if he did say so himself.

The last thing to do was get decent again before he was the one in danger of developing frostbite. He didn't wager Sojiro would be too terribly keen on having two patients to deal with in the morning, and the girl probably wouldn't be any more enthused about a shirtless nerd leering at her in the dark. He found himself grateful that she was passed out if only to spare her the sight, but also, admittedly, so there were no witnesses for the way he penguin-waddled over to his cardboard box of clothes and redressed himself.

By now, the girl seemed to have gone still. She was breathing softly, his blanket rising and falling at an even tempo. It helped him breathe a little easier too, and he sat at her side with his back leaning against the wall.

Now what was he supposed to do?

Plucking his glasses off, Akira slid them onto the shelf by his bed and reached up to rub the bridge of his nose. He should probably be calling someone, right? He had no idea how long she’d been out in the cold. What if she needed serious medical attention? It wasn’t like he knew what frostbite looked like to even check for that.

A pause, and he snatched up his phone to Google exactly that. He regretted it pretty much immediately, but at least the gross pictures gave him some idea of what to look for. Scooting along the edge of his bed, he lifted his comforter and inspected both of her pale feet. None of her toes were red or swollen. He’d take that as a good sign. The pitch black of her soles, on the other hand, sent panic slamming into his chest, but his heart slowed somewhat as he realized that it was merely grime from walking barefoot in an alley.

What in the world had happened to her? She couldn’t have traveled that far, or he didn’t doubt she’d have found someone much better suited to helping her than he was. But he was sure he’d never seen her before. If she wasn’t a local, what was she doing in Yongen-Jaya all alone?

...He should definitely be calling someone. Just because she wasn’t visibly injured didn’t mean she wasn’t. Lifting his phone again, he opened the keypad and began to dial. 1. 1. His thumb was poised just over the 9 when her eyes fluttered open. She blinked several times, her gaze trained up at the ceiling until it darted down toward his face.

He was so startled his phone slid right out of his hand and clattered to the ground. He shifted up closer to her head and cleared his throat. “Hey. How are you feeling?”

Slowly, she sat up, a dazed sort of look on her face like she thought she might be dreaming. “Mmnh… What was that in your hand?”

Akira blinked back at her. “What?”

“Was it a phone?”

It was hard not to be baffled as hell. Maybe she was just really out of it and hadn’t been able to see it well. She did seem like she was debilitatingly exhausted. “Er, yeah.” Ducking down, he picked it up off the floor and handed it to her. “If you need to call someone, go ahead.”

The girl held her hand out and let him drop it into her palm. She had to fiddle with it, playing with the buttons on the sides and watching the screen light up with something that looked strangely like awe. That didn’t seem right. She must have seen a cell phone before now if she knew to ask if that’s what it was.

His certainty of that began to dwindle when she made no move to call anyone. She was staring at the home screen, her breathing growing sharper the longer she clutched it in her hands. “Oh...it’s Christmas Eve. 20...16.”

Her hand went so loose that his phone slipped free and bounced in her lap. The room was dark, but the orange glow of the space heater was just bright enough he could see that her eyes looked wet. Akira felt like he should say something, anything to comfort her, but he couldn’t quite identify what it was she needed comforting for. “I can call someone for you, if you need me to.”

“Who are you?”

She twisted in the sheets, the comforter gathering around her hips and his too-large sweater swallowing her smaller frame. It was still impossible to tell what color her eyes were, but they were big and open wide and more penetrating than he’d expected.

Right. That was a perfectly fair question. She was in a stranger’s bed, in that same stranger’s clothes. He assumed he’d want that answered too if he were in her position. “Kurusu. Akira. It’s nice to meet you…”

She scrubbed the back of her hand beneath her eye and offered him another dazzling smile. “My name is Arisato Minako. You can just call me Minako.” Her hand fell away from her face, and she found one of his own to squeeze it. Her skin no longer felt like ice between his fingers. Good. That seemed...good. “It’s nice to meet you too, Kurusu Akira. Are you the Wildcard?”

His hand stiffened in her grip. The involuntary widening of his eyes felt like as much of an indictment as the ragged breath he took. “How-” Minako let go of his hand and looked down, moving to touch at her wrist. Her fingertips climbed up the length of her forearm, pushing at his sweater sleeve, then pulled away to grasp at the ends of her hair. “Minako?”

Her only response came in the form of a laugh. It bubbled up from her throat and burst between them, the sound of it painful and tight as the grip she still had on her own arms. He was alarmed to see that tears were dripping down her face. They spilled from the edges of her jaw and disappeared into the bedding circling her hips. Akira moved to speak again, to apologize, to offer explanations or platitudes or anything that might soothe the raw pain on her face, but she beat him to the punch. She let go of her arms, grasped his face, and surged up to press a warm, lingering kiss to his mouth.

“I thought I’d be waiting a lot longer for someone like you,” she whispered to him. “You’re my hero, Kurusu Akira. Thank you.”

She sank back down with her soft hands still curled around his face. The feeling that he should be _saying something_ still hounded him without mercy, but words escaped him entirely, along with all his motor functions. Her kiss had rendered him so immobile that his arms were motionless where they hovered near her sides.

As she pulled away, Minako sighed deeply, closed her eyes, and collapsed onto her back. “U- Minako!?”

He groped with clumsy fingers at her neck and was relieved to feel the slow, steady throb of her pulse. Out cold again. He breathed out and let go of her, leaning to the side and resting his shoulder against the wall. For several minutes, he remained that way, watching Minako sleep while his mind blazed with questions.

They could wait until morning. Assuming Sae was feeling charitable enough to give him the time for a small interrogation of his own.

It was strange to realize that was the second time tonight someone had told them that he was a hero. He had to admit, if only to himself -- 

He liked it a lot better than the first time.

\---

The aggressive buzzing of his thigh jolted Akira awake with all the gentle grace of an electric shock. His head jerked away from the wall, and the thin couch cushion behind it dropped down onto his shoulders and flopped against the back of his skull with a muffled ‘fwump’.

He groaned and pushed the heel of his palm up into his eye where sleep bore down on each of his heavy lids, all while his phone continued to vibrate merrily from deep within his pocket. Irritated, he stuffed a hand down into it and jammed his thumb against the screen. Even after this long, he still wasn’t accustomed to the ungodly hours at which his friends liked to call or text him.

Akira brought the phone to his ear and dragged a heavy hand through his hair. Fuck, his neck was on _fire_. “What?” he mumbled.

As he rolled his neck from side to side in a weak attempt at chasing away the deep-seated twinge digging into it, he dropped his eyes and nearly pitched sideways out of his bed. There was a girl sleeping beside him, curled up near his thigh with both her arms draped loosely beside her face. His black sweater dripped down around one of her shoulders.

Still muzzy as hell, Akira blinked and sat up, leaning down over her. Oh wow. She was real. He’d dismissed her sudden appearance last night as some sort of fever dream, but here she was in his bed, her red hair spilling across his pillow and her face relaxed in sleep. Minako. That was her name.

“Akira?”

The sound of Makoto’s voice snapped him back to reality, and he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “Sorry, what?”

“Is it true?”

He looked away from the girl, his eyes flickering down to the floor and a tiny frown grasping at his mouth. Sae must have told her. Did that mean she was going to be on her way soon? Great. He gave in to the desire to answer with little more than a heavy sigh, and he turned his attention back to Minako still sleeping near his leg. “Yeah, it is.”

Makoto didn’t respond to him right away, affording him a moment to examine Minako in the soft morning sunlight spilling in through his window. The eyelashes resting against her cheek were thick and dark, and she had an adorably sloped gable of a nose. He paused, however, his gaze lingering where a handful of bobby pins were falling out of place. Her hair was still caught in between the prongs, but it was loose and looked slightly snarled. Frowning harder, Akira tried to keep his phone in place against his ear with his shoulder, but his neck protested so violently he yanked it away, balanced it on his thigh, and pressed the speaker button instead.

“Are you certain that’s wise?” Makoto’s voice filtered up to him. Both his hands now free, he adjusted himself enough to grasp at her hair, holding it in place and easing each of the bobby pins free.

“Don’t have much of a choice, do I?” As if she didn’t know it was too late for him to take it back now. He’d already told Sae he would do it. “It’s fine. It won’t be my first time being arrested for something I didn’t do.” Plucking the last pin free, he gathered them into his palm and placed them on the shelf beside him.

“Why didn’t you tell us last night?”

He might have guessed she’d ask that, but it still didn’t annoy him any less that she actually did. “Why are you calling, then? To volunteer to take my place? I think you know why I didn’t tell anyone, Makoto.”

She lapsed into silence again, and an immediate surge of guilt overtook him for snapping at her. Acting like a dick wasn’t really the note he wanted to go out on. “...Listen. If the options are one person goes to jail, or everyone goes to jail, it’s not really much of a choice, is it? She was right. I already have a record. It makes a lot more sense for me to turn myself in than for all of you to ruin your futures out of solidarity or something.”

“I know. Sis told me.”

He bent his neck forward, picking idly at the knee of his thick cotton pants. She obviously had no idea what to say to him, and he couldn’t blame her when he had just as little to offer. There was nothing _to_ say. The deal was already done. Shouting into the void wasn’t going to help them undo it.

“Don’t worry about me, alright? It’s a sword I volunteered to fall on. I should go. I’m starving.”

“Er, right. I- Good luck. And...I’m sorry.”

He hung up and pushed his phone onto the shelf beside Minako’s hair pins. He really did need to eat before Sae showed up to haul him away for his third round of interrogations and a stint of juvenile hall. Not that the idea of curry was sitting well with him just then.

Reaching up, he rubbed the back of his aching neck and glanced down again to see that Minako’s brows were pinched tightly. Was she having a nightmare? Hesitating for only a moment, he let his hand fall to her shoulder and whispered her name. She didn’t move, but as he brushed an errant lock of hair back from her eyes, her brows smoothed out. It made him feel marginally better about leaving her there.

He climbed out of bed and shuffled down the stairs, making his way to Leblanc’s little kitchen. As far as last hurrah’s went, this was pretty pathetic, but beggars and choosers and all that. Especially when the alternative was not eating at all. But at least it was easy. Sojiro’s lessons were so ingrained in him he could damn near make curry in his sleep. Resting his shoulder against the wall, he watched it bubble sleepily, the familiar fragrance of spices filling the air. He was just about done when the front door opened up, and Sojiro let himself inside. “Oh? You’re up early.”

“Tell me about it,” Akira grumbled back.

He didn’t press any further, leaving Akira to his curry making and shrugging out of his coat to start readying the cafe for opening. It was strangely sort of nice to have Sojiro there, so comfortable and at home in his morning routine. The mundanity of it all felt safe, like it was just another normal day and not the precursor to a potentially life-ruining concession.

Akira brought his plate and a steaming mug of coffee to the bar, plopping down into a stool and eating in the companionable silence between them. 

Much as he didn’t want to ruin the moment, he was definitely going to have to tell Sojiro. He was so unwilling to field his friends’ entreaties to change his mind that risking their ire seemed like a perfectly reasonable exchange for not telling them, but he couldn’t justify volunteering the man to take care of a strange girl just because Akira thought she was really cute and also because he had the bleeding heart of a poppy.

For a handful of minutes, he simply ate and listened to the soothing sound of turning newspaper pages. But then he exhaled and glanced over to the man, already moving to drag his fingers along the back of his neck in a screaming admission of guilt that he was about to ask for something he had no right to. “Boss?”

“Hm?”

“I need a huge favor.” The newspaper folded in half over his hands, and Sojiro eyed him with clear expectation on his sharp face. Taking another breath, Akira leaned back in the stool and pressed his forearms against the edge of the bar. “There’s a girl in my room.” Even as he said it, he pulled an awkward face, and he watched Sojiro’s eyebrows rocket upward in a tacit _excuse me?_

“...I could have phrased that better,” he conceded. “It’s not like that, I don’t even know who she is.” The indignation radiating off the man would have been amusing if he weren’t busy choking on the sensation of his own foot in his mouth. Could he have possibly made himself sound like more of a creep? “Can you just call someone? For her? If she doesn’t wake up soon? I think she was in trouble. She showed up last night looking like she was about to freeze to death, so I let her stay here, but when I offered to call someone she didn’t seem to want me to.”

Great job, Kurusu. Very eloquent. Indeed, Sojiro was still staring at him, his features schooled into a flummoxed sort of scowl. “Is there something stopping you from doing that yourself?”

Akira fell silent, his thumb grazing along the side of his porcelain mug. “Yeah. I’m turning myself into the police today. Niijima will probably be here soon.”

The deep lines of disapproval fell away from his face, and Sojiro stared at him in silence thick with shock. “Why?” he asked finally. “I thought you wouldn’t need to.”

A little dully, he nodded back at him, trailing the tip of his index finger along the rim of the mug. “Niijima said it wouldn’t be enough. She said I have to testify.”

The snort of derision that was Sojiro’s response made him feel kind of better. Like his sense of betrayal might be justified after all. Like the scales of resentment coiled so tightly in his gut were righteous feelings of betrayal and not some childish sense of unfairness. “And that requires you to be in jail?”

“I can’t say I fully understand the logic either, but it was that, or they can arrest all of us.”

Sojiro still didn’t seem to be convinced, but to be fair, Akira wasn’t either. It seemed so completely nonsensical. Sae hadn’t exactly brooked much room for argument, though, and as he’d told Makoto, any choice whose alternative was to sacrifice his friends and save his ass wasn’t a choice at all.

Eventually, Sojiro indulged in a sigh that Akira felt all the way down to his bones. “Alright. I’ll do my best to help your friend.”

“Thanks.”

They sat together in the ensuing silence, each of them nursing their own cup of coffee. To his surprise, Sojiro didn’t reach for his paper again. He hadn’t even flipped the sign yet, even though they should have opened by now.

Akira drained the very last of his coffee as a firm knock rattled the door. He swallowed, set the cup back in its saucer, and got to his feet. Shit. He’d completely forgotten to change out of his pajamas. Not much time for that now. He opened the door and also his mouth, a greeting for Sae poised at the tip of his tongue, but the woman opposite him stopped it mid-leap. This was very much not Sae. He was pretty sure Sae had never owned a fur coat.

She was beautiful in the same way an arctic wolf was beautiful: self-assured, powerful, and ever so slightly terrifying. Both her hair and her eyes were the same vivid shade of ripe raspberries, and a perfect corkscrew of thick curls draped artfully over one of her shoulders.

“I’m here,” she said, her voice firm and her hand snapping upward to motion toward the legion of men and women at her back. All of them were smartly dressed, but unlike the last bunch of suits he’d encountered, each of them were carrying a briefcase instead of a weapon. “I’ve brought Kirijo Group’s legal team, as requested.” A pause, and her only visible eye flickered up and down his torso before she regarded him with a very mild, vaguely baleful frown. “I assume they were intended for you.”

“Did you say ‘Kirijo’?”

Ignoring him, and without awaiting an invitation, the woman brushed past him and stepped into the interior of Leblanc. A harder frown settled over her mouth. “Where is she?”

Akira stood there like an idiot until he composed himself enough to point up towards the stairs. It wasn't his most articulate response to date, but it was the right one to give. She spun away from him and rushed towards them, her curly hair bouncing against her back and her coat billowing with each step she took. She had already disappeared past the top of the landing before it occurred to him to follow her. He scrambled up after the woman and emerged to see her sweeping up toward the bed where Minako lay on her back. He could hear the broken, disbelieving breath she took even from where he stood. “It _is_ you.”

Tilting her head, Minako opened her eyes and smiled up at her. “Hi, Mitsuru.” She laughed, a wet sound that belied her chipper greeting. “Look at you! You’re all grown up, senpai!”

Mitsuru dropped a knee to the bed and leaned over her prone form, reaching out with a gloved hand and caressing her cheek. “And you haven’t changed at all.” She crashed forward and gathered Minako up into her arms, holding her so close that her face was buried in the girl’s neck. Akira was sure he heard the sound of a tiny, dignified sniffle. “You have been _sorely_ missed, my friend.”

“I missed you too,” Minako whispered back. Upon noticing Akira’s presence, however, her eyes darted over to him, and she grinned. “I couldn't help but overhear. I hope you don’t mind that I called in some backup for you.” As she said this, she waved his own cell phone at him.

“I’ll leave you to it.” He bent into a bow of apology and turned around to flee back down the stairs. It was clear he was the only dumbass who hadn't known better than to intrude on their private moment. Every single one of Mitsuru’s lawyers was making themselves at home in the cafe, taking over Leblanc while Sojiro watched from safety behind the bar. He looked every bit as baffled as Akira felt.

One of them, an older woman with steely greys threaded through her black hair, approached and examined him over the rims of her rectangular glasses. “Are you Kurusu Akira?”

“That’s me.”

She nodded and patted his shoulder, motioning with her head. “Come sit with us and explain your situation. From the very beginning, in great detail. Have some coffee, dear, you look like you could use it.”

He wrinkled his nose, but he elected not to argue. She was absolutely right. It had been a long night, but it looked like it was going to be an even longer, somehow stranger morning.

Some time before he’d fallen asleep, he’d imagined himself as some kind of savior sent from above to save Minako from the brink of death, not moping there in Leblanc by coincidence so much as by the guiding force of some divine hand.

Now he knew that was very much not the case.

It had been the other way around.

Before he joined the woman at the booth she’d chosen, Akira stood at the bar, taking Sojiro's ancient yellow phone into his hand and dialing Sae’s number.

“Niijima? ...There’s been a change of plans.”

\---

Of all the ways he could have celebrated Christmas, ‘surrounded by lawyers’ was not among the ones he’d have considered. He spent the entire morning at Leblanc, slam dunking coffees like they were Monsters and recounting every scrap of information he could think of pertaining to both his arrests and the whole stretch of time in between.

All in all, it felt the way that his interrogation with Sae _should_ have. No one yelled at him. No one drugged him, so he wasn’t drifting through a fog of disorientation the whole time he tried to talk. No one stepped on his leg. Rather, they made noises of sympathy each time he mentioned anything especially egregious and wrote down everything he said like it actually mattered.

Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be the only thing on his agenda for the day. As soon as the legal team was finished with him, Mitsuru swooped down the stairs and convinced him to join her for the rest of the day. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but the answer wasn’t shopping, which was exactly what they did. Her chauffeur dropped them off at the closest mall, and he followed her around like a mobile purse rack with feelings. Really, it wasn’t so bad. It was a nice change of pace to turn heads due to the glamorous company he was keeping and not because people liked to gossip about his preferred crafting method for prison shanks.

He’d never spent so long shopping in his entire life, but it stood to reason. Mitsuru was buying a whole new wardrobe for her friend, and she was clearly not one to scrimp. She loaded him down with tops for every season, skirts, shorts, pants, dresses, sweaters, scarves, gloves, a sumptuous jacket that looked like it cost more than his entire month’s salaries combined, tights, socks, and even shoes, but when they reached an aggressively pink storefront filled with lingerie-clad mannequins, she directed him to sit down at a nearby bench and wait there until she was done.

Eventually, she emerged with a tiny pink bag swinging from her curled fingers. With that, they were permitted to return to Leblanc, laden down by a veritable bounty of apparel. He settled into the back seat of her waiting car, his lap and both his feet swallowed by all the bags they couldn’t fit in the trunk. Mitsuru slid into the seat beside him and kept the pink one perched in her lap. “I thank you for your patience,” she said to him, prompting him to lift his head and meet her piercing gaze. There was a quality to her eyes that made him feel like she was sizing him up, even when she was just saying something nice to him. “It was very gracious of you to keep me company. I admit, I wasn’t expecting it to take quite this long.”

“I don’t mind,” he promised, lifting both his shoulders. “You loaned me your entire legal team. I feel like this is literally the least I could do in return.”

She regarded him with a small smile and shook her head. “Nonsense. Our lea- Minako told me that you’re the one who saved her. Assisting you in this matter is the very least that I can do, I assure you.”

Her chauffeur dropped them off again, as close to Leblanc as they could get, and Akira led the way inside. The first sight that greeted them was Minako perched at the bar, shoveling heaping spoonfuls of curry into her mouth. “Oh, hey!” Swiveling around in the stool, she waved at them and smiled, huge and dazzling. If Mitsuru’s smiles were muted and a little mysterious, like the curve of a crescent moon, Minako’s were as big and warm and open as the sun. “Welcome back!”

As she had that morning, Mitsuru sidestepped him, chuckling quietly and extending her hand. “I’m glad to see you up and about. How are you feeling? Aside from famished, I see.”

Just the word ‘famished’ made him feel faint, and his stomach sat up and roared like an angry ocean starved of ships. He’d been so busy he hadn’t eaten anything since the curry that morning. If either of the women heard the violent protesting of his insides, they were polite enough to pretend that they didn’t; Minako simply smiled again and perked up in her seat, wiggling the spoon between her fingers. “I feel great! I missed having a stomach.” She took another huge bite and indulged in a girlish moan, swinging back around to face Sojiro. “Thank you so much for feeding me. This is the best curry I ever tasted in my whole life.”

“Heh. Don’t mention it.” Sojiro motioned for Akira to join her at the bar with a jerk of his head. “Sounds like you could use a meal yourself, kid. Come on. Last one before we close up. What about your friend there?”

He craned his neck to see Mitsuru decline politely. “No, thank you. We ought to be going soon anyway. What do I owe you for her meal?”

For a good few seconds, it was clear Sojiro hadn’t even considered the subject of payment. He and Akira exchanged a look, and he turned his attention back towards the woman and slowly shook his head. “That won’t be necessary. Consider it on the house.”

Mitsuru pressed one of her gloved hands to the front of her chest and dipped into a low, elegant bow, her long hair tumbling past her shoulder. “You have my utmost gratitude for your hospitality. Both of you.” Righting herself again, she tossed her curls back and adjusted her coat. “Minako, I’ve had a room prepared for you at my home. Are you ready to leave?”

“Uhm, yeah, just about!” It was impossible to miss the flicker of disappointment on her face. He could practically feel the weight of her gaze where Minako glanced over to him, but she was quick to mask it with a sweet smile and tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’m almost done.” For the first time, he could see that her eyes were the dark, clear red of currant jelly.

She went back to her food, intent to scarf down the rest of it. He couldn’t help but watch her and marvel. She ate like he did every time he tried to force down a Big Bang Burger. He wished he could ask about her bizarre stomach comment, but it seemed better to wait until they were no longer in polite company.

“Kurusu.”

His spine snapped upward, and he looked over to Mitsuru. “Er, what’s up?”

“Do you have my number? I’d like you to contact me if you have any need at all. As I said this morning, my legal team is at your disposal until this business is resolved.”

Oh, right. He still had a trial to sit through. She was really sticking her neck out for him when no one could possibly know how long this bullshit was going to keep her whole team tied up. Then again, surely she had backup lawyers. “I don’t have yours, but I left my number with Hasegawa.”

“Excellent.” Turning away from him, she let one hand rest between Minako’s shoulder blades. “I’ll be waiting in the car, but please, take your time. I can keep myself occupied until you’re ready.”

“I will. Thanks, Mitsuru.”

She took her leave, then, slipping out the door. The moment she was out of sight, his whole back sagged forward, like it had been waiting for her to leave before it would allow him to slouch again. What a hell of a day. What a hell of a week, really. At least it was made marginally better by Sojiro sliding a fresh plate of steaming curry in front of him, along with a spoon and a cup of coffee. He’d come pretty far in his training, but Sojiro still made it better than he did.

Over the next few minutes, he and Minako ate side-by-side, the silence of the cafe filled only by the scrape of spoons against porcelain and a female news anchor detailing some of the aftermath of Shido’s confession. Minako finished hers first, of course, and as Sojiro reached for her plate, Akira leaned over and stilled his hand. “Let me take care of it. I can close up for you so you can go home to Futaba.”

“You sure?”

He nodded, and Sojiro surrendered the empty plate to him. “Take care, boss. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Same to you, kid.”

Plucking his green apron overhead and jamming his hat on instead, Sojiro flipped the sign and ducked out as well, leaving the two of them alone in the comfortable warmth of the cafe. Akira still had a good quarter of his curry left, but he found himself much more interested in the girl beside him.

He tapped his spoon against the plate and took a short breath. “...I know she’s waiting for you in the car, but-”

“But you want to know how I know about the Wildcard, huh?” Minako finished for him, propping her chin atop her curled fist and smiling at him with a wink. Cute. She was really cute. It was easy to see why a woman like Mitsuru would be so charmed by her. “That’s easy. It’s because I’m one too! Er, was, maybe.”

Akira felt like he should have known that already. Akechi’s existence proved he wasn’t some unique anomaly the likes of which the world had never seen. Still, even Akechi didn’t seem to have the kind of capabilities he had. He couldn’t fuse the staggering number of Personas that Joker could. He wasn’t sure Akechi even had access to the Velvet Room at all. Did that mean Minako did? At least at one time?

He did not say any of that. Instead, he simply said, “Oh,” and sat there like an idiot while she giggled at him.

“I promise I’ll tell you all about it soon, but I probably should go too.” Again, the faintest expression of sadness flitted across her face, and she slid out of the stool to stand. Akira did the same. It just seemed like the gentlemanly thing to do, walking her to the door -- even if the door was only a couple of feet away. As he reached out for the handle to open it for her, Minako faced him, and she threw herself at his chest and embraced his neck so tightly it became a genuine struggle to breathe.

Rather than complain, Akira gripped her back and pushed his face into her hair, both his arms encircling her waist. “Thank you for everything,” she whispered fiercely. “I don’t know how you did it, but you must have changed humanity’s heart somehow. That’s the only way I could be standing here right now.”

When she finally pulled away again, Minako exhaled deeply and squeezed at both his biceps. “I’ll bring your PJ’s back freshly washed, I promise.”

“Don’t worry about it. Consider them a souvenir.”

Her bubbly laughter was music to his ears. She spun away from him and turned towards the door, opening it up a second time and stepping outside. The instant her bare foot touched the ground, a high-pitched squeal of displeasure erupted from her, and she started sprinting down the road. “Oh my god the ground is so cold! Ahhhh!”

She looked absolutely ridiculous. In spite of his own laughter, Akira jogged behind her and scooped her up into his arms for the second time, carrying her the rest of the way to Mitsuru’s car and setting her down into the back seat. All in all, both of them being in hysterics made their parting much easier than it would have been otherwise. He returned to Leblanc in an enormously good mood, locking the door behind him and washing all the leftover dishes with a faint smile hovering over his mouth.

About an hour later, his night improved even further when he received a text from a new number.

_Hi. This is Minako._

_Call me! ♥_

\---

As if Akira could have resisted such an earnest request. He called Minako the next morning and was more than happy to listen to her gush about the brand new cell phone Mitsuru had given her the night before. He was still fuzzy on her exact circumstances, but he’d gathered enough to understand that smartphone technology was pretty new to her. Otherwise, he strongly doubted she’d have spent so much of their conversation explaining Neko Atsume to him.

Loathe as he was to do so, they had to hang up when it was time for her to leave. Mitsuru wanted to have her examined by a doctor, she’d explained, but she didn’t imagine they’d find anything of interest, despite the traumatic awakening she’d experienced. He assured her that it was fine. They could talk soon enough. It was, after all, more important that she receive a clean bill of health than it was for them to discuss which virtual cats they thought were cutest. Not that he couldn’t make a pretty solid guess. His money was on Peaches.

Unfortunately, the next week made a liar of him; they were unable to see or hear from each other again until New Year’s Eve. Audibly, at least. They texted as much as they could, but they were both much too busy for any prolonged conversations. He might have despaired if it weren’t for Minako being gracious enough to offer him so much insight into her days. All throughout the week, she sent him a ton of adorable selfies, some of them with Mitsuru, and others with people he was unsurprised not to recognize at all. One day, she even sent him an entire series of photos featuring her and a beautiful grey-coated Shiba Inu. He’d never seen a dog with such brilliant red eyes before. It looked like an older dog, but its energy was damn near palpable, and it looked as excited to be with Minako as she was to be with it.

By the time New Year’s Eve was upon him, what’d felt like a small eternity of a week seemed to have blitzed right past him. He’d spent the last several days chomping at the bit to see her, and now that she was on her way, he hadn’t even finished getting dressed.

He finished buckling his belt right as Leblanc’s front bell chimed. The sound of Minako’s voice filtered up to him, followed by a vaguely amused response from Sojiro. “He should be waiting upstairs. You can go on up.”

“Thanks!”

Hastily, he shrugged into his blazer and reached up to fix his hair just before she appeared on the landing.

“Knock, knock!” She rapped her knuckles on the side of the banister and smiled for him, her body tilted to the side and her scarf dangling. “Are you ready to go?”

Minako certainly had come a long way from that dirty white sheet. Her hair was tied up into a fluffy ponytail, the sides pulled back and held into place with the bobby pins she liked so much. He recognized everything in her ensemble from the shopping excursion he’d gone on with Mitsuru, but it was different actually seeing it all on her. From head to toe, she was dolled up in pastel oranges, yellows, and muted reds. She wouldn’t have looked out of place with a crown of fall leaves in her hair, like some sort of autumnal fae creature.

“I am. Just let me grab my wallet.” It was still sitting on his shelf, along with his glasses. He grabbed his wallet first and stuffed it into his pocket, and as he did, an intrigued little noise sounded from behind him.

“Ooooh! Look at this!” He pivoted on the heel of his boot to see her bent over the table where his retro console (and equally retro TV) were set up. She picked up one of the angular controllers and examined it with a huge grin on her face. “This is an antique even for me! I love it. Are you an old school purist, Akira?”

A smile twitched at the corner of his lips, and he stepped behind her and shook his head. “Nah. Just a cheapskate.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Nodding sagely, she set the controller back down on the table and whipped around to face him, her eyes opening wide. “Everything is so expensive and fancy and new! Did you know there’s a Playstation 4 now?!”

“I think I’ve heard something about that.”

She huffed, tossing her hair and snatching up one of his hands. “Can’t believe I missed out on an entire console generation. Anyway! Shall we?”

Akira gestured with the hand not caught up in her own, indicating the stairway. “After you.”

He followed her down the stairs, and together they made their way out of Leblanc and towards the train station. It was early yet, but nevertheless, the streets were already choked with bodies. They had to weave between them as they walked, Minako’s iron grip the only thing preventing them from being separated in the huge crowds. She didn’t seem to mind them, though. Excitement glowed across her face, her bare fingers warm in his hand and a spring in her step that made her wool skirt bounce.

One insufferable train ride and another short spate of walking later, they arrived at their first stop of the evening. He released her hand and pulled the door open so she could duck into the restaurant first. He’d never had the soba here before, but Ann assured him it was to die for, and he trusted her recommendations to be further within the realm of feasibility -- and, frankly, _normalcy_ \-- than he did Haru’s.

They elected to sit as close to a corner as they could get, Minako seating herself first and inhaling deeply. “It smells sooooo good. I can’t wait, I’m starving!”

Luckily, they weren’t left to wait very long. In short order they had two bowls of toshikoshi soba steaming before them. Minako cracked her chopsticks apart and dove in, slurping her noodles with such enthusiasm he couldn’t quite help chuckling. “Good?”

She nodded for him, her cheeks too stuffed for a proper response. As if to compensate for it, she offered up an exaggerated, “Mmm,” of affirmation. He’d have to thank Ann later.

For the first few minutes, they did nothing but focus on eating, each of them bent over their bowls as though it was their first time seeing food in over a week. It wasn’t until she was mostly sated that she resurfaced with a little gasp. “This is so delicious. I can’t even remember the last time I had soba.”

Slowly, Akira nodded, relaxing his arm and letting the tips of his chopsticks rest along the edge of the bowl. “I’m guessing it’s been a little longer than since last New Year’s Eve?”

“Oh. Right.” Minako’s eyes dropped away from his face, and she swirled her chopsticks in the broth. Something like guilt or discomfort flashed across her face, but he couldn’t even begin to guess which it was. “I guess I still haven’t told you about all...that,” she said vaguely, waving her free hand and scrunching her nose. “It’s kind of a lot. I totally understand if you don’t want to listen to me be a huge bummer right before the biggest holiday of the year. I don’t think I’d want to listen to me be a bummer if I was you.”

“I’ve got time.” Her dark eyes darted back up toward him, and she pressed her lips together, then offered a hesitant smile. “If you think you’re a bummer, consider yourself in good company. My friends and I once sat around a hot pot swapping tragic backstories. I’m the last person to accuse you of bringing down the mood, trust me.”

Minako snorted at him, tilting back in her seat and cracking a grin. “Okay, okay. You talked me into it.” She plucked a fish cake from her broth and popped it into her mouth. “I’ve sort of been dead for the last seven-ish years. Er, that’s not entirely accurate. I don’t really know how to describe it,” she admitted, her shoulders lifting and uncertainty pulling at her face. “It sure felt like I died.”

He could tell he’d been silent too long when Minako looked back up at him with her front teeth digging into her lip. Shaking himself back to awareness, he blinked and sat up a little straighter. “What happened to you? Did it have something to do with you being a Wildcard?”

She nodded and dunked her chopsticks back in, leaned forward, and inhaled another mouthful of noodles. “I signed a contract that gave me one year. I didn’t realize it was quite so...literal, but I guess that’s why they always tell you to read the fine print.” It made him feel better to see her chortling over her own joke like a dork. The next smile she managed was more genuine, and she set her chopsticks down and folded her arms to offer him her full attention. “Do you remember Apathy Syndrome? I’m guessing you were born in...2000, maybe? So, when you were around nine?”

1999, actually, but she was close enough that he didn't feel compelled to correct her. More importantly, he did recall something about the mental shutdown cases being compared to Apathy Syndrome before. Interesting. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I do.”

“Right, well, it turns out that was caused by something called the Dark Hour. I won’t bore you with the details but blah blah blah, there was a big crazy tower that only appeared in a ghost hour after midnight, and a big scary death goddess wanted to wipe out all of humanity. We defeated her a little less than seven years ago, on January 31st.”

Boy, did that sound familiar. Akira stared at her, silently absorbing this information. Fighting a big scary death god was pretty much how he’d describe his encounter with Yaldabaoth (though he might be tempted to substitute ‘asshole’ for death), and it did seem like she’d experienced something at least similar to the Metaverse. But if she defeated it--

“It wasn’t permanent,” she interjected. “The only way to keep her from succeeding was for me to become a sort of seal. So that’s what I did. Wow, that was way easier to summarize than I thought it would be!” She laughed and picked up her bowl to swallow the last of her broth. “Are you ready to go find a good spot for the fireworks now?”

“Sure.”

Akira paid for their meal and let her drag him out of the restaurant again, his mind reeling all the while. He had honestly believed that he and the Phantom Thieves had experienced something no one else on earth could even hope to comprehend. Really, how many evil gods could there possibly be? How many people had undergone an ordeal like his that he’d never, ever know about? And how many of them thought of themselves as similar outliers beyond understanding?

The bracing cold air of the outside world snapped him out of his useless ruminating, and he looked up to see a clear night sky that would afford a pretty spectacular view of the fireworks. Assuming they could find a good spot when every other person in Tokyo had the exact same idea.

While they meandered along the teeming streets, Minako glanced back at him over her shoulder. “Man, I am such a jerk! I didn’t even ask you about your ordeal. I’m the worst date ever.”

He was convinced his heart stopped beating entirely for at least a few seconds. Before he could say something stupid, she was already marching ahead, her fingers squeezing at his own. “It was a lot like yours,” he answered honestly. “No one died, though.”

For the second time, she swiveled back to look at him, this time with surprise stamped on her face. “How’d you kill the god, then?”

“I shot him in the face with the Devil.”

She went totally still, staring back at him with enormous red eyes and blinking adorably. Finally, she laughed and clucked her tongue at him. “Tch. Figures! Guys get all the best adventures. Yours sounds like it was way more fun. I didn’t get to shoot anything except myself.”

They spent the next couple of hours wandering from park to park, their fingers laced loosely together even where the crowds were thinner. The conversation shifted to much lighter topics, which seemed to buoy Minako to an almost comical degree. She regaled him with dozens of stories about all her friends he remembered from her photos. Apparently the Shiba Inu was called Koromaru, and he’d helped her fight Shadows like a version of Morgana who couldn’t nag anyone to go to sleep.

In return, he told her about the Phantom Thieves and some of their more cinematic escapades. Admittedly, his team sounded much less impressive on the whole when one of her teammates disappeared to go arm wrestle bears or some shit, and another of them was a formally trained sword-fighting glamazon. Still, Minako seemed perfectly delighted by all of them, even though none of the Thieves had yet to go on to become a famous TV star like one of the SEES members had. They still had time. Maybe Ann could become the bombshell villainess of her dreams.

A little before midnight, they found a near-empty bridge in one of the more sparsely populated parks. He guided her onto the highest point of the curve and stood beside her, both of them tilting their heads back and staring up into the sky.

For all that she seemed to be having a good time, it was impossible not to notice that Minako’s mood was a little off. She still smiled so beautifully, but it struck him as forced in a way they hadn’t earlier. Akira glanced to the side to see her frowning softly, her hands loose on the railing and her attention drifting to the other people in the park. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked her to talk about her time with SEES. She’d been perfectly cheerful up until he’d prodded his way into her business.

When she noticed him looking at her, Minako glanced back at him and adopted a huge, resplendent smile for his benefit, cocking her hips and bumping playfully against his own. “The fireworks aren’t gonna be down here, I don’t think.”

“I disagree.”

Wow. Maybe all those Frui-teas had been paying off. Minako seemed just as surprised as he was by his own brazen flirt, but before she could question him, he turned to face her and squeezed at the hand railing. “Are you alright?”

“I-” She fell silent and looked away, casting her gaze back to the small crowd milling around them, each of them eagerly anticipating the show. “Yeah, of course! I’m great! I’m about to watch the New Year’s fireworks with a really cute guy. Why wouldn’t I be alright?”

He could think of a lot of reasons why she wouldn’t be alright, but the last thing he was going to do was voice them and be a presumptuous ass if he was wrong. Just because they shared eerily reminiscent circumstances didn’t mean that he could understand the gravity of the sacrifice she’d been asked to make.

After a beat, she slumped against the rail and folded her arms over it. “...I don’t know.” Straightening up again, she leaned against his arm and chanced a glance up towards his face. “Does it feel sort of weird? That all these people can enjoy the holiday and their lives because of you, and that none of them have any idea?”

Akira let his hand rest at the small of her back. Maybe he wasn’t such a presumptuous ass after all. They were kindreds of a certain kind of fate that seemed determined to isolate them even from the others they’d been meant to share it with. None of the other Thieves understood what it had been like to expend so much effort fusing Personas with exactly the right inherited skill to make the twins happy. They didn’t know how hard he had to try to be worthy of some of the bonds he was expected to forge.

But Minako did. Maybe they couldn’t understand each other exactly, but they could get closer than anyone else in the world.

He looked back down at her and squeezed at her back. “It does feel weird. I know exactly what you mean.”

Absently, she nodded, her attention drifting away from him even as she surrendered further to his hold. “And I’m not any different, really. I know you didn’t do all those things to save me. But you still did. I’m standing here because of you, just like they are.”

“Minako-”

She pulled away from him abruptly, angling to the side and looking up into his face. “I never thought this day would come, you know? When it was happening, I just...accepted that that was the end. That my year was up. I mean, I told myself that it was theoretically _possible_ that humanity might change enough to stop wishing for death, but I guess I thought it would take hundreds and hundreds of years. Like maybe I’d wake up and we’d have, you know, flying cars and magical hamster tube teleportation and stuff.”

The longer she spoke, the more her real emotions began to shine through the cracks, and her eyes turned glassy and wet. “But now I’m here again, and I’m so- I’m so happy. All my friends are still alive. They still remember who I am. They still love me. But they spent the last seven years growing up and living their lives, and I spent them being a door.”

Guilt gummed up his insides more effectively than any glue. Icy sweat misted along his back, and he reached out and gripped both of her elbows. “Minako, I- I’m so sorry.”

“No, please. Don’t be.” She scrubbed at her face and beamed up at him, a warm and sincerely sweet smile illuminating her face. “I’m not. I’m really, really glad to be here. You gave me back a life I never thought I’d get to live. I’ll never be able to repay you for that.”

The hands at her elbows slid downward to hold her hands tightly as he stared right into her eyes. They were so beautiful. It seemed absurd to him that there had ever been a time when it was too dark to make out the color. From where he stood, her irises shone the same brilliant red as paper lanterns, a glowing point of warmth in the dark. A few errant flakes had caught in her eyelashes. He hadn’t even noticed it had begun to snow. “You don’t owe me anything, Minako. As far as I’m concerned, we’re even. You saved me first, right?”

The short breath that left her burst through the air like a plume of dragon’s smoke. A whistling sound pierced through the silence between them, and an explosion of greens and reds lit up the side of her face. As one, they both lifted their heads to see the first firecrackers of the night burst across the sky, ushering in a brand new year. She was smiling again, this time without even the hint of a shadow in her face.

Akira let go of her hand and cupped her face, pulled her close, and kissed her.

His ears rang with the sounds of pops and cracks and cheers the entire time. He could see the shifting rainbow of color through his closed eyelids, could feel her warm skin under one hand and the soft texture of her hair beneath the other and cold lips where she kissed him back.

He’d thought for sure that bringing Yaldabaoth to heel would be the last of his adventures. How could anything ever hope to top the pure adrenaline high of destroying a malevolent force for chaos? He had known, deep within his bones, that the opportunity for anything more than that would be permanently beyond his grasp.

But you know what they say:

When one door closes.


End file.
